“I’ve made amends with a lot of pieces of my life over the last few months, Milo. There’s really only one loose end I haven’t tied up.”
“You don’t have to make amends with me, Arizona.”
“I do,” she said, leaning toward him. “You were nothing but clear about what you wanted, even when that started to change?—”
“I lied to myself for years and then to you, Hanna. I would hardly say I was clear.”
She huffed a sigh. “I just mean that whatever happened or didn't happen between us, it wasn't your fault. If I’d been taking care of myself, I think I would have been better to you.”
A silence fell between them. She counted the tattoos on his forearm, following every twist and curve like a map to the melancholic frown on his lips.
“Logan was telling his mom earlier about spreading Lisa’s ashes with you.”
Hanna smiled. “Yeah. I fucked up so big with all of that, but I thought including him in something would give us both the closure we needed.”
“And?”
“And I can very confidently say that Logan and Hanna are a finished book.”
Milo nodded as he thought, wrestling with something he didn’t want to say.
“I don’t know how to be a relationship guy, Hanna.”
“Well,” she said, resting her hand on his knee. “This version of me has never been in a relationship either, so we could figure it out together.”
“You’ve figured a lot of shit out, but do you really think you’re ready for another long-distance relationship?”
“No,” she snorted. “Never again. Which is why,” she mumbled, scrolling through her phone. She held the screen toward him. “I sold my house.”
“You sold your house?”
She nodded. “I sold my house. I close right before Thanksgiving.”
Milo folded his arms. “So you fixed things with Logan. You sold your house. You’re over the whole dead mom thing?—”
She flinched. “What? Absolutely not.”
Milo leaned forward, his fingers lingering over hers.
"That was a test. You passed," he whispered. "So, you're like, super in love with me, or what?"
Hanna waited in the quiet for a moment, enjoying the way it sounded on his lips. She was in love with him. She’d known it for a while, but she’d never let the feeling rise to her tongue, never gave the air it deserved.
“Don’t freak out,” she said.
A slow smile crawled over his lips.
She grabbed his neck, pulling at the base of his curls and snagging his mouth in the kind of kiss she’d been thinking about for months.
He nipped at her ear and pushed forward, wrapping her in his arms and driving her backward onto the couch, his hands sliding everywhere.
“God, I forgot how good you tasted,” he murmured between kisses, pushing the hem of her dress over her thighs.
Hanna sighed, all of those locked-up pieces of her stretching and moving, shaking off the dust as she snapped right back into the version of her who got to be Milo’s girl.
He simmered like a tea kettle under her touch, bubbling and begging to pour into something new, something porcelain and precious, but still resilient enough to take the sear of him. The simple comfort of his touch was so much more than she ever dreamed she’d have again. He trailed her entire body with molten kisses, never once losing contact with as much of her as possible.
“Milo,” she gasped when his fingers found her, needy as ever for him. He pulled her on top of him in the dark of the guest house.
